Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

painful ones. Through it all, the principle of looking at
it as a meditation retreat and honoring the children
and the family situation as my teachers has proven its
primacy and value time and time again. Parenting is a
high pressure job situation. In the early years, it feels
like a full-time job for about ten people, and usually
there are only two, or even one, to do it all, and no
manual which comes with the babies telling you how
to proceed. It is the hardest job in the world to do
well, and most of the time you don't even know
whether you are doing well, or even what that means.
And we get virtually no preparation or training for
parenting, only on-the-job, moment-to-moment
training as things unfold.
At the beginning, there are precious few opportunities
for respite. The job calls for you to be continually
engaged. And the children are always pushing your
limits to find out about the world and about who they
are. What's more, as they grow and develop, they
change. No sooner have you figured out how to relate
well to one situation than they grow out of that and
into something you've never seen before. You have
to be continually mindful and present so that you
aren't lingering with a view of things that no longer
applies. And, of course, there are no stock answers
or simple formulas for how to do things "right" in the
world of parenting. This means you are unavoidably